“If you should run across anybody—” he began for what must have been the twelfth time. They were facing each other in front of the tent now. She was leaving it, as well as the sleeping bag and backpack and binoculars and what remained of the supplies, for his use. She would tell the others that everything had been too wet and bedraggled from the storm to carry back with her.
“I’ve got it,” she interrupted, knowing that he meant anybody who might be looking for him, and repeated the instructions he’d given her. “Stay away from them. Hide if I can. If I can’t, I know nothing about a plane crash, or you.” He already had her thoroughly spooked by the idea that nameless bad guys might be scouring Attu for him. At the thought that she might have a close encounter with them, her insides quaked.
“Don’t look so worried,” he said. “I’m not positive they’re here, and if they are you’ll almost certainly never see them, especially since you’re not going to be with me. They’ll know the plane went down, and the logical assumption they’ll make is that everybody on board is dead. They’ll check out the wreckage, maybe take a quick look around to try to make sure nobody survived, but they’ll probably stay as far away from you people and your camp as possible.” He paused, then added, “Civilian casualties are always a bitch.”
Does that mean you’re not a civilian? She didn’t say it out loud and immediately did her best to push the speculation out of her head. Once more, she did not want to know.
Her eyes swept the area around them: a tall drift of snow had accumulated between the tent and the path that anyone who wasn’t coming by sea would have to take to get to it. She guessed that most of the snow in it had been blown from the tops of the rocks. However it had happened, it formed a useful barrier if someone wanted to hide, which Cal definitely did. She knew the outcropping concealed the tent from anyone on a boat, even someone who came close to shore, and she was almost certain that the tent couldn’t be seen from the path, either. Not that she expected someone to be coming along the path. This remote area high above the bay wouldn’t be the first place her colleagues would think to look for her. It wouldn’t be the second or third place, either.
It was just one of many rocky ridges fronting miles of irregular coastline, and since the last anyone had heard of her she’d been in the Zodiac, their first thought would almost certainly be to take the other boat and scoot around the island, scouring the shore. Of course, if whoever was looking for Cal knew the precise location where his plane went down, they might be able to pinpoint his current location a little more accurately.
“Did your plane have a transponder?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed at her. “It was disabled.”
Since she didn’t really want to know why, she didn’t ask. Instead she took full measure of the expression on his face and responded tartly. “You’re wondering how I know about transponders, aren’t you?”
He shook his head. “I’m assuming you read newspapers and watch TV.”
“That’s right, I do. So why all of a sudden look at me like you trust me about as far as you can throw me?”
A flicker of amusement came and went in his eyes. A corner of his mouth turned up in a hint of a smile. For a moment he looked seriously, scruffily handsome. She had an instant, unwelcome flashback to their sizzling kiss and her pulse quickened in response. “Maybe that’s my default mode.”
“It’s unattractive,” she informed him. “So it’s possible that whoever’s looking for you doesn’t know where your plane went down? Or even that it went down?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s nothing I’d want to bet my life on. Or yours.”
For a moment their eyes held. His expression had turned grim, and reminded her that the danger he was in, and that he’d put her and her colleagues in, was very real.
It was also something she wanted no part of.
“I should go,” she said. He nodded, but when she went to turn away he reached out and caught her gloved hand.
“In case you should start having second thoughts about making that call, remember that you want me off this island. The sooner I’m gone, the sooner you and your friends will be safe.” His eyes bored into hers. The hard gleam in them was clearly a warning. “And if I’m not picked up within the next twelve hours I’ll head into your camp and make the call myself.”
She could feel the steely strength in the fingers wrapped around hers. The top of her head reached a little higher than his shoulders, and she didn’t like the fact that she had to tilt her head back so far to meet his eyes. It made her feel . . . vulnerable. Like he was letting her go but could change his mind about that at any time.
“I said I’d make the call and I will,” she told him, pulling her hand free. “Believe me, I want you gone as much as you want to be gone.”
That flicker of a smile appeared in his eyes again. This time she refused to be impressed. “Good to know.”
“Good-bye,” she said.
She started to turn away.
He caught her arm, pulled her around, and kissed her. Just like that, his hands gripping her shoulders, his mouth coming down on hers hard.